1. Field of the invention
The present invention relates to the production of specialty paint finishes, particularly those produced on interior walls by "rag rolling" and various other allied techniques, each of which involving considerable labor and mess. More particularly, the present invention relates to a paint roller which is structurally configured to achieve a specialty paint finish of the aforesaid class without undue effort or mess.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Specialty finishes, especially those applied to interior walls of dwellings, office and other buildings, are becoming increasingly popular. Specialty finishes afford extremely interesting visual effects that simply painted walls cannot match. Indeed, the visual effects achievable rival those of vastly more expensive wall papers.
Conventionally, specialty finishes involve a two step process: uniform application of a base coat of one paint and selective application of a top coat of one or more other paints over the base coat. There are two methods used for the application of the top coat: a negative application method, whereby the top coat is selectively removed after it has been uniformly applied over the base coat, and a positive application method, whereby the top coat is selectively applied over the base coat.
In either application method of the top coat, various tools are conventionally used. These include, sponges, cloth (such as loosely rolled cheese cloth, paint brushes, short nap paint rollers, and brushes (such as a whisk broom). Each of these tools are hand held and hand manipulated while paint laden; therefore, gloves are required and mess is inevitable.
One of the most exciting specialty finishes is that produced by a technique known as "rag rolling". Rag rolling involves the use of a piece of cloth (the "rag") to apply the finish of the top coat over the base coat by either of the positive or negative application methods after the base coat has dried. In the positive application method, a rag is dipped in the paint, twisted loosely, then rolled by hand carefully down the wall from top toward bottom. In the negative application method, the top coat is applied to a section of the wall, then a loosely twisted rag is hand rolled over the section so as to remove part of the top coat. In either application method, unique and interesting patterns emerge from movement of the rag.
A further discussion of conventional specialty finish techniques is contained in a publication "How to Create Fantasy Finishes with Flair & Imagination", available through Benjamin Moore Paints, dated January of 1991.
As can be gathered from the foregoing description of rag rolling, the process is quite messy, laborious and time consuming. Direct hand manipulation of paint laden tools being thusly undesirable, the prior art has addressed some attention to solving this problem. In the closest known prior art, U.S. Pat. No. 4,930,179 to Wright et al, dated Jun. 5, 1990, discloses a paint roller having a roller portion which allegedly produces rag rolling effects. The roller portion is provided on its periphery with a plurality of axially extending twin flap members of chamois leather material, one of the flaps of each twin flap member being longer than the other. While this device may provide some assistance to those persons wishing to engage in rag rolling without its attendant labors and distress, still there remain considerable disadvantages. The device of Wright et al is not well suited to either positive or negative top coat application methods: in the case of the positive application method, the twin flap members cannot hold sufficient paint to do the job; in the case of the negative application method, the twin flap members cannot absorb enough paint to do the job. Indeed, with regard to the negative application method, in order to ensure a proper effect, it is the conventional practice to use very absorbent cloths which are discarded as soon as they become excessively paint burdened; clearly the device of Wright et al is deficient with respect to absorbency and with respect to periodic cloth replacement during a job.
Accordingly, what is needed is a device which proves a specialty paint finish without the undue effort and mess attendant with prior art techniques and devices.